Men's Six Nations 2024, Week 2

After last week when, arguably, only Ireland put in an 80 minute performance - I’d argue that Italy didn’t so much decline as they were shut down, defensively they kept England in check, but England suddenly stopped their attack - there are lots of questions this week about how each of the others will react.

The Matches

Scotland v France

Last week Scotland showed up for the first half, and the last few minutes. France only showed up for about five minutes. This week, thankfully, both teams turned up, more or less, for most of the 80 minutes.

Scotland were probably the better side. Certainly at lineouts they were, but they appeared to make fewer errors and give away fewer penalties as well (the stats support this but it’s not quite as one-sided as I felt it was from watching it. I think the French back row snaffled a lot of turnovers and penalties that didn’t have the same feel but brought the count close). I also wonder just how annoyed the French coaches will be about what seemed to be an inordinate number of offside penalties. I’m sure they spent a lot of time looking at speed and aggression, most offside penalties are mistakes of being too fast and aggressive… so not ideal but better than the alternative?

However, as I suggested above, France’s back row, and others, were working better. This gave Les Bleus more ball and better ball, as well as disrupting Scottish ball. And that made a difference, really throughout the match. Last week the French barely got any quality ball. This week, they’d have liked more, particularly from lineout, but they got enough that the stars got to do all their star things. Was that the difference between the sides? Arguably. France penetrated deep due to a moment of magic from Ramos and Aldritt. That turned into three points. A series of moments from Atonio, Baille and Jalibert led to a nice try from Fickou. A moment of magic from Penaud denied Scotland a try. A magical pass from Le Garrec to Bielle-Biarrey and a sublime kick and chase led to France’s second try. There were less magical moments too, Ramos took his points from the tee routinely, as did Russell. Scotland's lone try was equally impressive, but it was the only time Scotland really penetrated. They came incredibly close off French errors twice, but didn’t really create their own chances.

I have to say the TMO probably evened things up but didn’t cover himself in glory. A batch of instances of foul play by Scotland, not a whisper. One by France, yellow card. But at the end the ref calls held up and while everyone was sure it was a try, the TMO wasn’t sure he could see the ball being grounded… probably justice. The discussion around it was poor though, the TMO said the ball was on the ground, then asked for a rock and roll and said he couldn’t see it being grounded, stick with no try. The English press are abusing him (he’s Irish) and saying Scotland were robbed (hatred of the French is rampant in the right-wing that reviews rugby here).

France and Scotland served up two fairly long stretches of kick-tennis. They both exploited the “if you don’t advance, you’re not offside” loophole that will hopefully get shut soon. Given this led to the field position from which France scored their winning try, I can’t imagine teams are going to do away with it soon, but it’s not an exciting part of the game. It’s not the only way to play, England v Wales really didn’t serve it up. There were a couple of short exchanges, but when they’re only two or three kicks long it’s not as dire. (Quick aside, SRP is trialling a law change to counter the loophole. Although it’s a bit more complicated, loosely you can’t tackle until you’ve been played onside by an advancing player on your side. So the player lurking 10m away won’t be such a threat, nor will kickers (or another player) not advancing.)

A final note. I think all the French replacements came on and had good games, a number of them were better than those they replaced. But I want to pick out two in particular. I think Moefana, who replaced Danty, and Le Garrec, who replaced Lucu, were both clearly improvements. Lucu's days in blue might be numbered. Replacing Danty is a bigger call, but he’s not looking the player he was last year. The others definitely had moments, there’s a maul that Tuilagi just shunts up the pitch like he’s sprinting that is amazing to watch, but those they replaced were good too.

England v Wales

For at least 60 minutes Wales were the better side on the pitch, and for 70 minutes they were ahead on the scoreboard. Sadly, for most of the last 20 minutes, as the replacements came into play, a bit of extra strength in depth from the English shone through. For example, after the props were all replaced the Welsh props had eight caps between them, the English 168 caps. Wales still won scrum penalties in this period though!

Wales scored a couple of nice tries and England only one. For the second week in a row they have outscored their opponents in terms of tries, but lost the match. Some of that is down to territory. Wales gave away, for them, a lot of penalties - five - but most of them in kickable positions. England gave away more - nine in total - but mostly outside of kickable range. Wales' attack was good enough to strike from deep twice and almost twice more. One of those was a good penetration deep into England’s half, then the phase play eventually got turned over, the other was a thrilling charge down the line and a bit of a fumble on a very hard pass while under pressure from a finger tip tackle from Ford denied Wales. Either of those would have swung the result.

However, England ground out a win and the bad record Wales have at Twickenham in the Six Nations era continues. Really that is the only way to describe it. They didn’t really create much - their try came from defensive pressure, then a scrum on the Welsh 5m line. They tried to stifle Welsh attacks more than create their own. They clearly managed it once, but the Welsh defence stood firm, they were arguably managing it a second time, but a deliberate knock on and a yellow card (no complaints about that decision) shut that down. They didn’t do anything with that advantage.

Ireland v Italy

Ireland put out a somewhat mixed squad. Quite a lot of players from last week's defeat of France remained, but a few of the more established stars were swapped out for younger players. I have no problem with Farrell going for wider squad players but, given there are no games next week, all the talk of “greatest respect for Italy” has been countered by a selection that looks more like “it’s only Italy.” By contrast, Italy welcomed back Capuozzo, but were missing their two most significant ball carriers in the pack, so it was not their strongest team.

Although it’s hard to be certain, I think the wind was doing odd things. Both Garbisi and Crowley missed their first kicks, and they seemed pretty simple. Belting the ball for distance was largely ok, but more central than you’d expect. Kicks for touch either missed, kicked dead or were more cautious than you might expect, often 10+ metres shorter than normal. Crowley went on to have a poor day kicking from the tee.

Italy played better than France last week. That’s not saying much (sorry Mo) but it’s true. Ireland didn’t score at will, which they gave the impression of doing last week, but worked to create and score their tries. Likewise, I would say that Italy were more creative than France, but lacked that killer finisher, or perhaps the Irish defensive effort has gone up a gear after last week. In fairness to France, and as a point for Italy to work on, they made a lot of errors. Some of those were as a result of heavy Irish pressure, yes, but not all of them and it’s something they need to improve.

But Ireland remain the complete unit. Italy played well enough to make them go through their paces, but they had the class to do that and keep going, score their tries. People are lauding Crowley as the second coming. While he’s looked good, he’s performed against a terribly out of sorts French team then an Italian team missing one of its star back rowers. We need to see what he looks like under real pressure, I’m not sure he’s going to get that until South Africa, although I hope Wales manage it of course.

Happy Coaches

Farrell will be delighted to have stopped Italy from scoring and seeing his changed team still go out and score look smooth in attack. He will be looking ahead and laying plans for Wales, but this was a job well done. He has complained that they looked clunky and out of sorts in interviews, but he’s in a position to do that after what was actually a very good performance.

Galthié will be relieved rather than happy I think. France won ✅ Defensive effort much better ✅ Stars involved ✅. However, this was a healthy step forward, not the complete package. You can argue if last week was France in neutral or first gear. This felt like about third. I think in this analogy I’m looking sixth being the highest gear, rather than something like 18. If you can get the team up to about fifth, you’ll win a lot of games. Still happier than anyone else.

Borthwick and Gatland I am ranking as even. If this was about pride, Gatland would be a long way ahead. This team have come on from the second half last week and taken it to England at Twickenham, while missing a load of injured players and were the better team for a long time. They changed plans on their own accord and made the attack work, the defence worked too. A lot of the rest was inexperience, and that will improve game by game. Borthwick will be relieved with a win, but the English attack was limited again, the defence was cut to pieces easily again, and two yellow cards - there are a lot of things to work on that aren’t going to be fixed by playing for another ten games. They’re both somewhat happy I think, Gatland will be doing more arms around shoulders, Borthwick more shouting about inadequate play, but with things they’re happy about too.

Townsend is (wrongly) angry about the not-try, but after that he’ll be unhappy. While there is an alternate universe, not far away, in which Scotland scored three tries - the one they scored here, the one the TMO overruled and the one Penaud denied Smith - only the first of those came from Scottish creativity, and that off a French mistake from a box kick, the others were from French mistakes near their line. Those would have counted of course, but you want to create, especially with a Russell in your side. Scotland have problems and no obvious answers.

Quesada least happy. Italy were missing Negri and I forget the other name. Without those power carriers they looked creative but they couldn’t really get any punch to carry through once they’d created that first moment of magic. He'll have been hoping someone would step up. Maybe that’s not particularly fair against Ireland playing at home, but I can’t help thinking a full strength Italy would have done better and strength in depth is still an issue.

Looking Ahead

Next week is a rest a rest week, in a fortnight we have the following matches:

Ireland v Wales

I can’t see Wales winning this, but you never know. It would be nice to see them limit Ireland to not scoring a bonus point and to scoring some nice tries against them. Staying under five penalties again would be nice for Wales too.

Scotland v England

Neither side have really impressed so far, but Scotland have had more moments. They’ve also got a nice streak against England and while we’re seeing a changing of the guard, there are enough retained members of both teams that that sense of having the upper hand for Scotland will give them an edge. With a low degree of confidence, Scotland to win.

France v Italy

France are on tour again, in Lille this time. France will have two weeks to move from third gear to at least fourth, hopefully fifth. I hope Italy are back to full strength and perform but I can’t see them getting up unless France go backwards.